Beginnings
by annafan
Summary: Why did it take Han and Leia three years to start to get close to one another? Perhaps it's because, in the middle of a war, you have other stuff to think about. Or perhaps losing your whole planet puts a damper on things. Han gets caught up in an argument among the top brass, and finds himself caught up in mission planning with "Princess Death Wish." Happy Birthday, Lady Peter!


**Beginnings**

**For Lady Peter's birthday. Because I know she dislikes "Leia the Quartermaster" as much as I do. And even more so because she's a fantastic beta! (I have not attempted to write smut, simply because one does not "take coals to Newcastle" - LP is the undoubted queen of Han and Leia smut and I could not possibly compete).**

**With heartfelt thanks to FettsOnTop for reading through this and making helpful suggestions. Any remaining glitches are of course all mine!**

"Captain Solo. Sir! You can't do that. That's completely unethical!"

"Just watch me, Goldenrod."

"But... You have deliberately deceived it."

Han spat the next few words out one at a time. "It's. A. Kriffin'. Computer."

"And so am I, Sir. You have fed it misleading information. This is all most irregular."

"Yeah, well. You're a protocol droid. You know about deception. Wouldn't be much good on a diplomatic mission if you didn't. This," Han reached out and slapped the outer casing, "Is the ship's guidance system. All I've done is filled in some missing data by pretending last year's file is the current one. Just a harmless tweak to the date-stamp in the filename. It won't ever know the difference." Han's lip curled. "It _won't_ care. It's not like I took its number then didn't call. It's not like I slept with it then didn't say goodbye in the morning. Like I said. It's. A. Kriffin'. Computer." Han shoved the data stick into the port and punched it. He had a feeling that if droids could look disgusted, Threepio would.

Grunting with irritation, he got to his feet and headed back to the mess area of the Falcon. His brother-in-law was sitting on one of the couches, feet up on the holo-chess table. His blond head was bent over as he looked at the datapad on his lap.

"Hey kid, how's things?" Han slumped onto the couch at right angles. He picked up a bottle of the locally made soda and took a swig.

"Hi!" Luke looked up, a broad grin on his face. For a moment, he looked more like the farm boy Han had first met all those years ago than the Jedi Knight he now was.

"Now, that's a shit-eating grin!" Han raised an eyebrow at Luke. "Wanna say what's so funny."

Luke held up the datapad, and Han could just make out the by-line of Coruscant's most notorious gossip columnist. "Kre'vark has the inside scoop on the early days of your relationship with Leia. 'Sources close to her highness,' no less. Apparently you hung around the rebellion just because you had the hots for her..."

"If 'had the hots for her' means 'wanted to avoid Jabba having my head', then yes..."

Luke continued. "Denial, denial, denial..." He plucked the plastic bottle from mid air without so much as looking.

_'How the hell does he do that? Kriffin' force._' Han's mental grumbling was interrupted by Luke.

"Says here you haunted her every footstep for the first year..."

"Haunted her every footstep? I hardly even saw her. No-one did... apart from the brass and her mission co-pilots. And word was anyone likely to get that job didn't hang around long enough to see her at close quarters... not if they saw her coming first."

"Meaning?" Luke could be very defensive of his sister.

"Meaning they knew the odds. Leia had a death wish that first year or so after Alderaan... Well, wouldn't you? She took on crazy missions. The crazier the better. She got away with it, Kriff knows how. But a lot of her co-pilots didn't. Everyone round the base knew that. Being signed on as her co-pilot, or wing-man – chances were you weren't coming back."

Luke turned his gaze back to the datapad. "So you weren't in a 'tempestuous relationship'? Says here 'At each other's throats one moment, inseparable the next, but whatever the mood, their interactions always suffused with a sexual tension, an underlying current of attraction you could cut with a vibroblade.' It's all right here in black and white!"

"He gets _paid_ to write that Bantha crap? Man, I am in the wrong job."

Luke gave a grin that made Han wonder whether he had entirely renounced the Dark Side. "'Fellow flyers say the low-key attraction first garnered more attention when Solo had a public show-down in the mess hall with top-ranking Rebellion commanders over his lover's future role in operations...'"

"Lover?" Han spluttered. "I don't think I'd spoken to her between the award ceremony after the Battle of Yavin and that day..."

Luke pounced on the weak spot. "So you you admit you remember _that_ day?" He grinned. Definitely traces of the Dark Side, Han reckoned.

"Yeah, I remember it. Always remember a good fight – and, man, that was a good one." Han slouched back against the seat, lost in a memory. His lip twisted into a lopsided grin.

~o~O~o~

Han eyed the slop in front of him. He'd smelled worse. Not by much, but definitely worse in his time. He lifted the tray and headed into the seating area. He still didn't really mix with the others on the base if he could help it, aside from Luke. And, oddly, Rieekan. For all Han's mistrust of "brass", he got on okay with the general. Maybe it was because the guy was a fellow Corellian. Maybe it was because he'd come up through the ranks and didn't behave like "brass." But, them aside, mostly Han was either flying missions, helping Chewie with the never-ending job of keeping the Falcon running, or just keeping his head down. After all, he was here to lie low, avoid Jabba, avoid bounty hunters. He wasn't out to end up as Prom King.

All the small tables in the mess hall were already occupied. Han shrugged. If he joined someone at a table for two, he'd have to talk. He took his chances on sitting at the far corner of a larger table. With luck, any group that took up the rest of the seats would sit up the other end. Turned out his luck was out.

Practically everyone who was anyone was in the group – Dodonna, Mon Mothma, Rieekan, a couple of other guys Han didn't recognise... and Princess Death-Wish. The unknowns exuded that air of sycophancy of the next notch down from the really high-ups. Rieekan seemed to be keeping his own counsel. Mon Mothma was being forthright. Dodonna was being a pompous asswipe as usual. Some things never changed. The Princess... Well, she was clearly furious about something.

They did sit at the other end of the table, but there were only a couple of empty seats between Han and Rieekan. Leia sat opposite the General, and Han could practically see sparks of energy radiating from her. She looked like a Hengis cat in a thunderstorm.

"You want to take me off flying combat missions?" Her voice was harsh, furious, like a bolt from a blaster.

"We don't feel it's the best fit between your strengths and the requirements of the rebellion..." Dondonna began, voice oily smooth.

Leia's eyes narrowed still further. "My strengths? Time and time again, I've brought back the goods. Stolen plans, tactical and strategic information, lists of contacts in neutral star systems, weak links in the Imperial high command. Even a list of our own double agents gotten before it was too late and they'd blown our location and whole strategy for the next year. I'd call that a fair list of 'strengths', and a good match for your 'requirements'." She dismissively jabbed her fingers in the air, making quotation marks round Dodonna's jargon.

"But the cost," said Mon Mothma. It was the first time Han had been up close to the patrician woman who was the intellectual powerhouse behind the rebellion. He was intrigued. Dodonna had all the hallmarks of someone promoted beyond his competence, at least, that's how he was coming across to Han. But Mon Mothma – well, she wore power like it was a comfortable flack jacket. She came across as nobody's fool.

She continued, tone brusque. "In the past year and a half, you've lost three partners, had four more incapacitated permanently, and another two captured by Imperials. That's a lot of manpower."

"No-one fights, or wins a war without casualties," Rieekan observed, dryly.

"But the level of casualties..." Mon Mothma said. "10%, 15%, maybe 20% at the outside. But it's getting to the stage where no-one will fly with her."

"The casualties are high," said Leia, her voice level, but with a sharp edge, "Because these are the really difficult but vital missions. You want high casualties – what do you think the casualties would have been if I hadn't gotten that list of double agents for instance? 80%? 85%? 90%? Would we even still have a rebellion?"

"We very much appreciate your vital work to date," Dodonna said. Han recognised the technique – make a meaningless placatory noise then carry on with what you'd wanted to say anyway. You couldn't argue with these people. They wouldn't engage with any of your arguments. They just let them wash over like radiation bursts over a ship's shields, then carried on with the course they'd already plotted in advance. Sure enough, Dodonna continued, "But we see your future as lying in the strategic planning and organisation of fighting forces, materiel and support."

There was a deathly silence for... how long? One, two, ten heartbeats? Han felt like he was watching the timer on a blast charge ticking down. Then the explosion came.

"You want me to become a quartermaster?" Leia's voice was incredulous, furious. Underneath, Han thought, he heard a hint of... hurt. She carried on, hurt masked by anger. "The job you give the guys who're too old to be out in the field? The guys who probably lacked the flair and imagination to achieve anything useful even when they were young enough for fighting duties?"

"It's not like that," began Dodonna.

"That's precisely what it is like," Leia said, only to be cut off by Mon Mothma's calm, measured tones.

"Leia, it's not just your partners' lives on the line. It's yours. Whether you like it or not, you are the symbol of this Rebellion. We can't afford to have you lose your life on a crazy mission – because, make no mistake, your missions are crazy. That you've brought back the goods so far is as much down to luck as anything. You're not some kind of tactical mastermind who leads a charmed life dodging every bolt of blaster fire that comes your way. Sooner or later your luck is going to run out."

"So my luck's going to run out? You think I don't know that? In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, so long as I achieve something worthwhile before it does." Leia's voice was flat, hard. Han paused, mid mouthful. _She really doesn't care. She really has got a death wish._

"With all respect to your enormous loss," Dodonna said, "You have to look at the bigger picture. You may not care about your life. But in the grand scheme of things it does matter, it matters enormously to the morale of the Rebellion. Throwing it away on minor strategic gains would be an act of supreme selfishness."

Leia went chalk white. The flimsy plastic cup in her grasp crumpled, spilling water across the table as she clenched her fist. Han could see the hurt on the surface now. More than hurt, sheer, animal pain. And fury. Dodonna seemed unaware of how thin a line he trod, how near to having a blaster drawn on him he was.

"Your Highness, you have to move on." The same oily voice. Kriff! Had the asswipe really just said "move on" to someone who'd lost their whole bloody planet? And said it in the tone of voice you'd take to a love-struck teenager, or someone who'd missed out on a minor promotion?

Han wasn't sure why he spoke. Something about Leia's pain seemed to compel him. He picked the weapon that came easiest to him: sarcasm. "Heroic quartermaster... Not sure that works for me. Hell, given the choice, I think I'd find martyred hero of the rebellion more of an inspiration."

Kriff. Now he was the one going to have the blaster drawn on him. All eyes at the table swivelled towards him.

"I wasn't aware anyone had asked for your opinion, _Captain_ Solo." How could Dodonna make his contempt for the lack of military rank so clear? Asswipe. But to Han's amazement, some of the pain seemed to leave Leia's face. At least, she got some control over her features. And was that some of the colour returning to her face? And even... a quirk to the corner of her lip. Dammit, she shared his black sense of humour. From the choking noises Rieekan was making, it sounded like he did too.

"Captain Solo, might one ask whether this would inspire you enough to actually sign up formally to our cause?" Mon Mothma skewered him with an icy glance. "Since you seem so blasé about spending the lives of my officers, I'd hate to think there was nothing I was going to gain out of the deal." Han's mind freewheeled as he tried to come up with a snappy response. _Dammit..._

"You know he's right," Leia cut in. "I'm probably worth more to you as a dead hero than a quartermaster."

"And better a live hero than either," Han added.

Dodonna made to speak, but Mon Mothma silenced him with an imperious wave of her hand. "I don't recall you actually being asked to join this meeting, Captain Solo." At least she delivered the word 'captain' without any inflection.

"Last I heard, this was the public mess hall. You wanna discuss private strategy, you wanna rip pieces off one of your best officers, don't you think _you_ should be the one choosing somewhere private?" Han could feel himself starting to get angry. He pulled up short. Why was he invested in this? This wasn't his fight. He tried to damp down his emotions, buying time by taking another fork of slop. Just another ordinary Joe, having another ordinary meal in the canteen, trying to ignore the brass.

Mon Mothma looked daggers at him. _Brilliant. Way to go, Solo. Why not make an enemy out of the most powerful person on base?_

"Perhaps you're right, Captain Solo. We should discuss this elsewhere. If you'll excuse us." She made to stand up. Beside her, Dodonna leapt to his feet like a well-trained poodle.

Rieekan suddenly spoke, delaying their exit. "Actually, maybe we _should_ talk about this in front of Captain Solo, albeit somewhere more private. I have a suggestion that might give our live hero here a chance to continue her vital work, albeit with a partner who, in virtue of his self-professed mercenary approach to this war, will put the dampener on her tendency to run unacceptable levels of risk." He turned to Han. "Could you join us in the Admiral's office?"

Han's jaw dropped. _Me and my big mouth! _He'd just got himself partnered with Princess Death-Wish. Completely outmanoeuvred, there was nothing he could do other than nod and get to his feet.

As the party made their way to the doors, the Princess fell into step beside him. Somehow he'd forgotten in the eighteen months since the débâcle on the Death Star just how small she was. Her personality had that effect. Her body might be tiny; her presence was immense. And that immense presence was not amused. She hissed at him in an undertone.

"I can fight my own battles, Flyboy."

Han glared back, before answering in a hoarse whisper. "Don't worry, your Highnessness, next time you get into this kind of a spat, you're on your own. I can promise you that."

"I do not want to be partnered with you on a mission."

"Trust me, Sweetheart, the feeling's mutual."

Lengthening his stride, he got half a pace ahead of her. He stomped down the corridor behind Mon Mothma and the Asswipe. _Kriffin' frozen hells of the Outer Rim. Kriff. What had he got into? One mission, though, just one mission, dammit. That was all the time he was going to put in with Her Royal Suicidalness. Just one mission and he was out... Except... He'd said that before, hadn't he. Kriff. He really did have Bantha crap for brains!_

**Author's Note: The opening was inspired by the fact that I have been lying to the computer at work in a similar fashion. Note to those wishing to try the same – computers are dumb, but not totally dumb. They know about leap years. So if you lie about the date, make sure you lie about February 29th too. Even if you have to make up an imaginary February 29th. (I am trying not to think of the CPU time, the wall clock time, the resources that went into all those runs that fell over _one_ model day short of completion!) And – to hbt5c* – I'd just like you to know I do still respect you and I'm sorry I didn't call the morning after. Just, well... it's not you, it's me...**

***Not the computer's real name. I'm a gentlewoman. I don't kiss and tell.**


End file.
